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meat industry
Keep the Turkey, Change the System
Changing your diet isn’t the only way to help tackle factory farming; instead, you can donate to charities working to make a difference.
Nov 27, 2025
As holiday dishes parade across dining tables nationwide, there’s one question we often try to avoid: Where did my food actually come from?
Every holiday season, Americans consume millions of turkeys, hams, and other festive fare. The uncomfortable reality is that about 99% of the meat in the US comes from factory farms: industrial facilities with crowded conditions, which pollute the environment and push traditional farms out of business.
But this isn’t what we want to think about when we’re celebrating. And we certainly don’t want to swap turkey for tofu.
Here’s the good news: Changing your diet isn’t the only way to help tackle factory farming, and it probably isn’t even the best way. Instead, you can keep eating meat and donate to "offset" your impact. Think of carbon offsets, not just for the climate, but for animal welfare as well.
The meat industry would love us to debate individual food choices endlessly rather than examine the system they’ve created.
This is because some of the charities working to change factory farming are so good at what they do that it really doesn’t cost much to make a big difference. In fact, it would cost the average American about $23 a month to do as much good for animals and the planet as going vegan. Even with all the trimmings, Thanksgiving dinner costs you less than a dollar to offset.
Despite campaigns like Meatless Mondays and Veganuary, meat eating is still on the rise globally. About 5% of US adults identify as vegan or vegetarian, and for years that number has remained stagnant. The "diet change strategy" just isn’t moving us in the right direction.
On the other hand, charities have made huge gains in improving the lives of farm animals and pushing for a more sustainable food system. Groups such as The Humane League, or THL, have pressured major food companies to eliminate cruel practices, like confining egg-laying hens in cages too small to spread their wings. Thanks to THL and others, 40% of US hens are now cage-free, up from just 4% when they started.
But is it hypocritical to keep eating meat and pay a bit of money to feel less guilty?
Not necessarily, if the goal is to make a genuine difference.
In fact, emphasis on individual action has often held movements back. In the early 2000s, one of the biggest promoters of the "carbon footprint"—the idea of measuring and reducing your personal impact on global warming—was the oil giant BP. Shifting the focus from the role of big business to consumer choice plays into the hands of the world’s biggest polluters. In the same way, the meat industry would love us to debate individual food choices endlessly rather than examine the system they’ve created.
Instead, we need systemic change: supporting organizations that push for better regulations, fighting harmful agricultural subsidies, and holding companies accountable for their practices.
Most importantly, writing a check is a much easier ask than changing your entire diet, which means more people will actually help. We know people are willing to give their money to animal causes: About 12% of Americans do it, more than twice as many people as are vegetarian or vegan.
Right now, billions of animals are suffering in factory farms while we argue about what’s on our plates. The fastest path to ending their suffering isn’t waiting for everyone to go vegan: It just needs enough of us to put our money where our mouth is.
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Why Climate Action Must Start on Our Plates
Rebalancing industrial animal farming cuts emissions, limits disease risk, protects biodiversity, and strengthens food security, reminding us that human, animal, and planetary well-being are inseparable.
Nov 10, 2025
Every year, world leaders gather to tackle the climate crisis. They promise to cut emissions, restore forests, and invest in a greener future. Yet one of the most powerful tools for change often goes unmentioned: the food on our plates.
After more than a decade of working in, and with, the United Nations, I’ve learned something crucial: Food sits at the center of everything we are trying to protect—our climate, biodiversity, health, and livelihoods. This year, for the first time, food systems are formally part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (UNFCCC COP30) Action Agenda—a long-overdue recognition of their central role in solving the climate crisis. Still, too often, they remain the missing piece in global climate discussions.
The science is clear. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that food systems—from how we grow and process food to how we transport and waste it—account for about a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The message is simple: We cannot fix the climate crisis while ignoring what we eat.
A Hopeful Solution Within Reach
This reality should give us hope. Food offers a solution that is immediate, inclusive, and within reach. Every meal is a chance to make things better.
Plant-rich eating is not a trend or a restriction. It is a climate solution, backed by science and rooted in fairness. Research in Nature shows plant-rich diets produce 75% less climate-heating emissions compared with high-meat diets, while using 75% less land and 54% less water. By eating this way, we can cut global food emissions by nearly one-third, improve public health, and ease the pressure on forests and ecosystems.
As negotiations unfold in Belém, COP30 offers a historic opportunity to embed food systems into the heart of climate policy.
But consumption is only part of the picture. World leaders must change how food is produced. Industrial farming, which relies heavily on deforestation and feed crop production, drives much of the problem. At COP30, hosted in Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged bold action to protect forests, including a $1 billion commitment to the Tropical Forests Forever Fund. Reducing the expansion of soy and maize for feed—a major driver of deforestation—is essential not only for reducing emissions, but also for helping communities adapt, especially in vulnerable regions.
At Compassion in World Farming, we see this every day in our work with farmers, policymakers, and communities. Agroecological and regenerative practices, such as crop rotation, help restore soils and reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers. They also align with traditional and Indigenous knowledge that works with nature rather than against it.
Why This Matters to Me
As a father of a Gen Alpha child, I think about what kind of planet my daughter will inherit. We eat three times a day, every day, and we will do it for the rest of our lives. Our choices shape whether her world is sustainable or fragile.
I have been part of countless UN meetings and summits on climate, food systems, and sustainable development. In the past year, I have witnessed growing momentum across the UN system to integrate food into climate discussions, especially following the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) and the COP28 Declaration on Food and Agriculture’s recommendations. This shift is encouraging and signals the world is ready to treat food systems as central to climate action.
When I look at my daughter’s future, I want to believe that we will have the courage to connect these dots: to see that what we grow and eat is not just personal preference but global policy.
What Leaders Must Do
At COP30 in Belém, governments have a chance to change course. To do so, they must:
- Integrate food into climate plans. Countries’ climate pledges, known as Nationally Determined Contributions, should include agriculture, livestock, strategies to eat more sustainably, and reducing food waste. They must move away from industrial farming and feed crop expansion toward regenerative agricultural practices that cut emissions and build resilience.
- Make plant-rich diets a climate priority. This is not about telling people what to eat but enabling sustainable, lower-emission choices that realistically align with the planet’s ecological boundaries. In practical terms, the recently launched EAT-Lancet 2.0 report, supported by leading scientists and policymakers, offers a clear and actionable framework for countries to adopt healthier, climate-friendly diets.
- Support farmers through a just transition. Those least responsible for climate change, who tend to be the most vulnerable populations, must be supported with finance, capacity building, and fair access to markets.
These shifts must fit local realities. In the Global South, diets, cultural traditions, and nutritional needs vary widely. Supporting plant-rich diets must go hand in hand with respecting local contexts and ensuring food sovereignty.
A New Kind of Climate Leadership
Reframing food as climate action must include the recognition that human, animal, and planetary health are deeply connected and dependent. Rebalancing industrial animal farming cuts emissions, limits disease risk, protects biodiversity, and strengthens food security, reminding us that human, animal, and planetary well-being are inseparable.
As negotiations unfold in Belém, COP30 offers a historic opportunity to embed food systems into the heart of climate policy—not just as a mitigation tool, but as a pathway for adaptation, resilience, and equity. Global action on food must reflect its true potential: to drive down emissions, regenerate ecosystems, and chart a more sustainable future for everyone.
This is the climate leadership we need: bold, inclusive, and rooted in the principle that climate action begins with what we eat.
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We Don't Face Crisis of Scarcity or a Population, But a Crisis of Capitalism
We must explicitly name the culprits that are creating an environment rife with both climate catastrophe and conditions hostile to children and families—corporate power and concentrated wealth.
Jul 25, 2025
Mounting concern over declining birth rates, the devastation of the climate crisis, and a rising conservative pronatalist movement have led to a renewed focus on population. People across the political spectrum express show up on both sides of the debate, whether about the economic challenges of an aging population, our planet’s destruction (and its very real human toll), or pushing a regressive agenda.
Late last month, The New York Times published “Depopulation is Coming, Don’t Expect it to Solve Our Problems.” I read it eagerly. Economists Michael Geruso and Dean Spears do make important points. They write: “Confronting climate change requires that billions of people live differently. It does not require that billions of future people never live.” Here, here! And, in making their argument against depopulation, they also share a vision for the future where systemic barriers driving birth rates down, like the high duress placed on mothers, are no longer so prominent.
Those are great points, but they don’t tell the whole story and we need to be honest about the real crisis.
These questions bring me back to the beginning of my life’s work. The authors reference Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968), which argued that, if the population kept growing, humanity would implode from famine or disease due to a lack of resources. It came out when I was a young woman and took the world by storm.
When we discuss population, we must take care to clearly identify the constellation of social and economic factors at play.
I wondered, “Is this true?” The resulting research led me to write my first book, Diet for a Small Planet (1971), which proved that our growing population was not the problem. Instead, concerns over scarcity—at least in the realm of food—pointed to a larger culprit: Concentratedcorporate power and extreme economic inequality which together promoted meat-centered diets.
In a moment when population is again in the limelight and meat-based diets are increasingly valorized, I want to return to the argument I made then. It feels more important than ever.
About three-quarters of the world’s agricultural land is devoted to livestock that provide only about 11% of our calories. And just four corporations—JBS, Tyson Foods, and Cargill, and National Beef—control over three-quarters of the global beef market. In pork, three firms account for two-thirds.
We can see concentrated power still hard at work here. Meat is the most inefficient way to feed ourselves.
Here’s the key point: Meat production is not only wasteful, it’s incredibly destructive. For one, it furthers destruction of carbon-absorbing rainforests while adding cattle-emitting methane—a particularly intense greenhouse gas. According to one report, “Cows pack such a punch that, if they were a nation, ‘cow country’ would rank as the world’s sixth worst greenhouse gas emitter.” And, tragically, cattle farming alone is responsible for 41% of tropical deforestation.
These mega-corporations—with their substantial hold on the meat market—have no real reason to slow or stop their production; instead, they profit, while we bear the brunt of the destruction.
Let’s return to the question of population. We know that the meat industry—as one of the big drivers of our climate crisis—is a huge part of creating scarcity-based depopulation rhetoric. At the same time, we know that depopulation is no longer an idea simply made mainstream by Ehrlich et al., but a reality driven by declining birth rates.
The decline in birth rates is a phenomenon across the West, but the U.S. has a distinct landscape. In a 40-country comparison, we come in 38th—third worst—for childcare affordability. For single parents in the United States, a gargantuan 32% of income is spent on childcare. According to The Guardian, in Massachusetts, infant care costs almost $27,000 per year on average--“21% more than the average rent, and 83% more than in-state tuition at a public college.”
While the cost of childcare is mind-boggling, it’s not a stand-alone issue: We are in a full-blown cost of living crisis. The U.S.’ median income is just over $80,000 a year, yet to live comfortably in Mississippi—the U.S.’s most affordable state--a family of four would need to make around $190,000 in 2025. All of this in a nation where the richest 1% of Americans make 139 times as much as the bottom 20%.
When we discuss population, we must take care to clearly identify the constellation of social and economic factors at play. This means explicitly naming the culprits that are creating an environment rife with both climate catastrophe and conditions hostile to children and families—corporate power and concentrated wealth.
We face neither a crisis of scarcity nor a crisis of population. Rather, we face a crisis of capitalism.
The solution is a democratic economy with rules against monopoly and an adequate safety net that provides the resources we all need to thrive.
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